how the lines blur into each other
by burning fireflies
Summary: Five ways Arthur and Ariadne are becoming lovers - two halves of a whole.


**how the lines blur into each other**; five ways arthur and ariadne are becoming lovers – two halves of a whole.

i.

They've been together for nine months now, enough time to gestate a baby, and Arthur thinks that maybe that's just what's happening. The lovechild of Ariadne's personality has incepted his brain, taken over his conscious mind. Staring at household objects reminds him of her regardless of whether or not the connection between Ariadne and various items of furniture actually makes sense, or he's just gawking at a lamp.

So maybe it's normal that he's unconsciously starting to dress just a little more casually. He's started buttoning his shirts with a few left undone, his tie just a little looser, his shoes unpolished. He doesn't notice this change until he's standing at a checkout, holding two ties – one patterned a jovial paisley and the other with a horizontal skyline climbing the side, and it suddenly dawns on him that he hasn't actually worn a suit in God-knows-how-long, he only picked up the ties because they appealed to him. It takes him another half-second to remember that approximately nine months ago he never would have touched anything with buildings on it, but he gets it anyways because he knows she'll smile when she sees it.

ii.

Ariadne has always had the same writing – her letters are loopy and they flow into each other and is occasionally illegible. Her eighth grade teacher used to make a big fuss about how the letters _r_ and _i _looked like _n _if she didn't lift her pen, and that dotting the hybrid did not constitute two distinct consonants. Regardless of this, she had never changed her writing, but over the years the only thing that's different is that it's gotten a tad smaller in size.

So it's a bit of a surprise when she looks down at a page of notes and realizes that her letters no longer lean to the right, like her words are falling on each other, but are standing straight. She inspects the writing and notices that where she had crossed her _t'_ s, the line actually had gone through the thin loop, whereas she usually missed the mark altogether. The dots of her _i'_ s are a lot less off-target and she writes along the blue ruled lines of the page, the sentences never tilting into the next row. Ariadne hates capital letters (they're stiff and not at all aesthetic) but she notices that she's capitalized a few proper nouns that she normally would leave in lower case.

It occurs to her that she's subconsciously picked up on Arthur's writing habits. She smiles and tucks the notes into a folder.

iii.

Arthur is staring at his desk, wondering where his files have gone. It's messier than he ever remembers it being (it's barely messy by anyone else's standards) but he finds what he's looking for after a few seconds of searching.

He wonders if Ariadne and her paradoxically organized mess has anything to do with this. Briefly he considers cleaning up all the loose papers and sticky-notes, but he decides that he can live with it and promptly leaves with his files.

iv.

Ariadne wakes up to sunlight streaming through a crack in her curtains, and as usual Arthur is already awake (she can smell coffee brewing). Then she realizes it is Monday, and begins to freak out. She's pulling on – rather, trying to pull on – the second sock when she realizes that it's seven and she doesn't need to be anywhere until eight thirty. It hits her that she hasn't woken up early for anything for a long time, and so she finishes putting on her socks and walks into the kitchen.

"Morning," she murmurs, and smiles at Arthur. As always, he is awake for earlier than need be. As always, he kisses her and hands her a mug of coffee.

v.

"Arthur –"

"Ariadne –"

They speak at the same time, so she smiles and he gives a lopsided grin and then motions for her to continue. He was going to ask her the same question.

"Arthur, do you know what it is –"

"– to be half of a whole?" She looks at him, and he laughs. Her lips quirk into a small smile.

He looks around the apartment, his colourful tie strewn over the sofa and pages of lined paper, filled with Ariadne's beautiful handwriting, piled on top of the kitchen counter and the dining table. He sees open files on the desk that they share and a water ring from that morning's cup of coffee. He looks around and sees two lives, interwoven, two lines that blur into each other.

"Yeah," he replies. "I think I do."


End file.
